Council Buffs and Nebraska Ferry Company
The Lone Tree Ferry, later known as the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company, was the crossing of the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska, US, that was established in 1850 by William D. Brown. Brown was the first pioneer to see the potential for a city on the site, and the landing became a popular gathering site for the first settlers of the Nebraska Territory. Named after a solitary tree on the Nebraska bank of the river, the Lone Tree Ferry became central to the founding and development of the City of Omaha.
William Brown was headed west from Mount Pleasant, Iowa in the California Gold Rush of 1849 when he decided to stay in Council Bluffs. In 1850 he outfitted a flat boat with oars and obtained a charter from the Pottawatomie County Commissioners to operate a ferry across the Missouri River, at which point he also illegally staked out 160 acres (0.6 km2) of the prime Missouri Valley flatland which became Omaha. It was from this position that Brown first conceived of founding Omaha. The point which he launched from on the Nebraska side was purportedly in the Miller's Landing area.
Brown convinced 12 businessmen, including Dr. Enos Lowe, Jesse Lowe, Jesse Williams, and Joseph H. D. Street, all of Kanesville, Iowa, that the Omaha plateau was an ideal spot for a city. On July 23, 1853 they formed the Council Bluffs and Nebraska Ferry Company. In addition to owning ferry boats the company also owned property on both sides of the Missouri River. In September 1853 the company bought a steamboat from Alton, Illinois called the General Marion. In its early years the company was the instrumental force in getting settlers into the Nebraska Territory.
Early in 1854 the company built the St. Nicholas Hotel, the first building and first hotel in Omaha. During the next summer the organizers of the ferry company surveyed and laid out the town site for Omaha City west of the Missouri River. The first commercial building in Omaha belonged to the ferry company, which donated its services as the legislative chambers for the first territorial legislature and the first post office.
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